Why working mums are facing lockdown burnout
Studies suggest that women are doing the majority of homeschooling and many are struggling with juggling work as well, writes Chrissie Russell
‘We’ve given up,” says mumof-two Deirdre Murphy simply. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. We’re not lazy, we don’t want to undermine or underestimate all the work the teachers have done or are currently doing, but my husband and I are not teachers. I do not have the skill set or the patience to keep up the school work. When school finished I had great intentions to do an hour of school work every morning. But within a few days it was becoming a struggle.”
She’s talking, of course, about homeschooling. The lockdown challenge faced by many parents who now not only feel the weight of keeping their own jobs going from a home setting, but also the pressure of overseeing their child, or children’s, education as well.
“It’s a nightmare,” says Dublin mum-of-two Sinéad Hingston who is currently trying to home-school her eight-year-old while she and her husband work from home. “Our eightyear-old has become increasingly frustrated and doesn’t want to do anything at all. Trying to get her to do school work, trying to work 7.5 hours a day in finance and entertain a toddler — it’s impossible and very stressful.”
As a freelance journalist, I’ve always worked from home but now find myself joined by husband who has managed to commandeer our tiny office while I perch at our kitchen unit with a laptop. He’s the main wage earner and working full-time, while I have the (dubious) luxury of a freelance schedule and trained as a teacher in a previous life. Thus, while he’s undeniably hands-on with other aspects of care pertaining to our five-year-old and two-year-old — not to mention a great man for cleaning up — it’s me who has acquired the responsibility for home-schooling our eldest, while also trying to occupy the toddler.
New research for The New York Times suggests this gender divide is fairly typical (even if all parties don’t view it that way). The poll revealed that nearly half of all fathers with kids under-12 reckon they’re spending more time on school work than their spouse — but tellingly only 3pc of women agree. Overall, 80pc of mums say they’re spending more time on home-schooling. And there are other hints that the load is not being shared equally: in the UK and US, it’s reported that journal submissions from female academics have plummeted in recent months. So just why are we carrying the extra burden?
“I do it because my husband has no interest whatsoever,” said one Irish mam who preferred not to be named. “He works from home fulltime and I work part-time, but as soon as the Aladdin app got sent out my husband said, ‘Sure there’s no point having it on two phones’. He says I have more patience. We’ve only one little boy, he’s five, so the work isn’t hard for me but it’s interesting that I’ve noticed from parents’ WhatsApp groups — it’s all the mums. There isn’t one dad in the group.”
Joanna Fortune, author of 15-Minute Parenting 0-7 and 8-12 years, out later this month, says that, whilst parenting is collaborative, it’s not always about splitting tasks evenly. “Ideally nothing should fall entirely on one parent to do, be that cooking, playing, bedtime or school work. But we also should play to our strengths,” she explains. “Children learn best in a calm environment so if you are a parent with a very low frustration level for school work (regardless of gender) the other parent is best doing it while their partner takes on other household tasks to ensure there is a greater degree of overall balance.”
“Normally we would split homework 50/50 but with home-schooling I’m doing the lion’s share and working full-time,” says Dublin mum-of-three Cliodna Gilroy. Her husband, Dave, is currently working from home but, because his job requires a lot of face-to-face calls, mostly in the morning when the kids are most receptive to school work, Cliodna has taken on most of the teaching work with Oisín (10), Ailish (7) and Isla (4).
She says having a routine has helped: Joe Wicks in the morning, school work, the RTÉ home-school hub, Zoom piano lessons and tests on Fridays, weekends off. “I try to keep the TV off until 4pm,” adds Cliodna. “But by then I’m broken enough!”
She works in sales as a medical rep, and says her employers have been very understanding of the fact that many workers are trying to juggle different roles.
“During a video call Isla came in wearing nothing but armbands saying she wanted to go on a slippy slide. Our marketing manager was lovely trying to explain to me how you could turn a normal slide into a water slide but we don’t have a slide! And I’d no idea where she’d found the armbands .... ”
In March, when lockdown began , Google Trends showed a huge spike in searches for ‘fronted adverbials’ no doubt spawned by thousands of parents trying to teach their children long-forgotten grammar. Research by CWJobs shows 68pc of parents feel stressed by home-schooling and 63pc find it hard to understand their child’s work. Seventy one per cent say it’s hard to set and stick to a routine.
“We’ve no routine,” admits Rachel Coffey, currently a stay-at-home mum to three kids aged one, three and five. But there’s also never a ‘good’ time for school work. “We get up in the morning and go out on bikes and scooters just to burn off that morning energy, then home for snacks, put the baby to bed but, of course by then, my eldest is too tired from the walk to do school work!”
The schools are in a difficult situation but sometimes the technology around work sent home has also posed problems for parents.
“We’ve no printer so I have to get my husband to go into his office to print all the worksheets off or else write them out myself by hand,” says Rachel. Then of course there’s
the fear that everyone is doing more...
“I know someone teaching their child Spanish,” says Rachel. “I’m on the Seesaw app where you can see what work everyone else has completed and I feel like we’re well behind. There’s a scoreboard and it’s just another added stress. Then there’s a Zoom assembly every week and my three-year-old has Zoom calls set up with her classmates — which is lovely — but I can’t go on every Zoom call, I can’t even find time to Zoom my own friends!”
Co Cork mum Deirdre struggled with accessing work sent digitally. “We were directed to an app and to several online reading resources by the teachers but, as I had given my laptop to a friend with a daughter in secondary school, I only had my phone to access this stuff,” she says. “I had committed to mobile broadband in anticipation of extra online activity, but accessing it added to the stress and eventually we all got so far behind it was overwhelming for all three of us.”
Joanna says parents need to know when to hit pause. “I think parents need to exhale and ease up on the school work pressure for a couple of reasons: 1. Teachers will get our children back on track when school resumes; 2. Play is learning, it’s how children process what’s going on in their worlds so if your child is playing, rest assured they are learning.”
She continues: “Structure is your friend but remember, it’s flexible not rigid. I always say to praise a child’s efforts over outcomes — well I think as parents we could do with giving ourselves a clap on the back just for trying. Trying to parent, work, maintain a home and teach our children is a juggling act and sometimes a ball will get dropped. Dust yourself off and try again tomorrow.”
The Department of Education and Skills has released a range of supports on the education. ie website and have reassured parents that:
“Sticking to a full school work timetable will not work for everyone. Insisting on one may lead to heightened stress and tension at home particularly if you have a number of schoolgoing children. Be flexible and sensible.”
With the school’s support, stay-at-home mum Deirdre is now doing a bit of reading and writing each day with her sons, aged eight and nine, while her husband continues to work full-time. Otherwise she’s focused on keeping the boys healthy and happy, playing outside. “It has removed the biggest source of conflict in our home,” she says. “It’s like a cloud has lifted.”